Reporter’s notes from sit-down with U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz

The new U.S. attorney for Massachusetts says she has no doubt that fugitive James “Whitey” Bulger is still alive.

“I really don’t have any reason to believe otherwise,” says Carmen M. Ortiz. “I think he is alive. We operate on the assumption that he’s alive.”

Ortiz, who became the state’s first female and Hispanic U.S. attorney in Massachusetts when she was sworn in three weeks ago, says one of her top priorities will be to find Bulger and bring him to justice.

“I will say that we will absolutely be continuing to look for Mr. Bulger,” she says. “It’s very important to this office and the victims of his crimes that we catch him.”

Some of the other topics addressed during a Dec. 2 meeting in her office:

Ortiz says she recently met with U.S. District Court Chief Justice Mark L. Wolf, who has been a sharp critic of her office in the past

“We both have the same goal that the work that we do is done properly,” she says. “There is no question that we as assistants, and I as U.S. attorney, are dedicated to processing investigations in a way that is right and just.”

As far as a mandatory training program scheduled for Dec. 16, Ortiz says she will not agree to Wolf’s request to order prosecutors to attend. She will, however, recommend that they go.

“I indicated that I was not going to make it mandatory, but I have encouraged the assistants to go to the training session,” she says. “I will be at the training session, and I am confident that most prosecutors will be there.”

Ortiz says she does not expect a shift in the type of cases, including gang-related prosecutions, that will be brought to federal court.

“I think that many of those cases should be handled in federal court,” she says. “Handling gun and drug cases will continue to be a priority.”

Ortiz says she plans to bring more financial fraud cases to federal court.

“What happened with Bernie Madoff, we should make every single effort to prevent that from happening again,” she says. “Victims should know that we are open for business.”

Ortiz, a former Middlesex prosecutor and long-time assistant U.S. attorney, says she has also met with members of the defense bar and talked with them about some of their concerns regarding sentencing practices.

“The primary concern that I heard is that there seemed to be some inflexibility regarding our sentencing policies, but I really want to focus more on forward thinking,” she says. “Right now, the Department of Justice is doing a review of our sentencing policies.”

Ortiz says she is not opposed to the death penalty in “very select cases.”

On a personal note, Oritz says she is a mother of two daughters. Her husband died in 2000 at age 42 of cancer. Her boyfriend of seven plus years, Tom Dolan, works at IBM.

“If you talk to most people that know me, men and women, they will tell you that I’m very down to earth, very genuine and very direct,” she says. “What you see is what you get.”